


Iuka

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, But not a songfic, F/M, Fic based on a song, secret sisters: iuka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4308321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler grow up together. </p>
<p>"Don't you worry, Rose Tyler.  I'll take care of you.  Forever."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iuka

**Author's Note:**

> **This right here is the angsty Nine/Rose growing up fic that no one was asking for. It is based on the Secret Sisters song Iuka, and it is super depressing and angsty, and no one should read it. At all.**
> 
> **Seriously, call it quits now.**
> 
> **It's also a little bit NSFW there at the end.**
> 
> **So really, no one should read it.**

His first clear memory was of a squirmy, warm, pink bundle placed in his child's arms to hold. The mothers had insisted that he sit ( _you wouldn't want to drop her, Chris_ ), and Jackie had warned him to hold her head.

"Isn't she beautiful?" his mother had asked.

"She looks funny. Not like the babies on TV," he'd said, with the candor of a child.

Jackie, far from getting offended, had laughed. "She's too new. She'll look a bit less red and a bit more like the babies on the TV in a few days."

Chris looked down into the scrunched goblin face for another minute. "I hope you're right. She looks like a squished tomato right now."

His mother, Verity, gave him a gentle cuff on the back of his head and Jackie laughed.

"What's her name?"

"Rose," Jackie said, with a fond look down at her daughter. "That's what she looks like to me, a rosebud. Not a squished tomato."

Chris frowned and looked at the wee red face peeking out of pink cotton. He supposed Jackie had a point. Rosie had a face that did remind him of the tiny, crumpled rosebuds that grew outside his mother's kitchen window.

"Rose Tyler," he said slowly, tasting the name like a piece of Halloween chocolate. "I like it."

"Glad to hear it," Jackie said, patting him on the head.

The mothers descended into grown-up conversation and Chris and Rose were effectively left alone.

He continued to watch her with the focused curiosity of the very young. After a few minutes, as though she felt the intensity of his gaze, the scrunchy eyes opened and focused on him- a peculiar cloudy blue, but direct and solemn.

"Hello Rose Tyler," Chris whispered. "I'm going to take care of you forever."

Rose opened her mouth in a gummy smile.

~?~?~?~?~

He remembered her father's funeral, though he knew that she wouldn't. She cried through the whole thing- her rosebud face screwed up in glowing red fury, her wee fists waving, her eyes- which had quickly changed from grey-blue to tawny-brown- were squeezed shut against the pain of the visible world.

Chris envied her. He wished he could screw up his face and cry like that, but the moms needed him. He'd never seen Jackie look like that- lost and sad and completely unsure of herself. Chris and his mother were always at the Tyler house, his mother looking after Jackie, and Chris looking after Rose.

"They both lost their fathers so young," his mother had said one day, watching Chris hold up brightly colored toys so rose could see them and grab for them giggling. "They'll always have each other, at least."

Jackie laid her screaming bundle in Chris' lap as Verity supported her up the aisle. Rose was much bigger than the first time he'd met her, but she still seemed so tiny to Chris as he stroked a finger down her hot, wet cheek.

"Don't worry, Rose Tyler," he whispered as Jackie and Verity together closed the top of the casket that held the mortal remains of Rose's father. "I'll remember him for you."

Rose finally stopped crying.

~?~?~?~?~

Her first memory was his mother's funeral. She was three and he was six, standing so tall and straight and sad. She had stood between her weeping mother and her silent, stoic friend and reached a tiny, warm hand up to each of them.

Jackie had taken her hand, squeezed once, hard, and let go to blow her nose for what seemed the hundredth time.

Chris had not responded to her touch, so Rose curled her small fingers around his and held on for dear life. She held on through the sermon and the preacher's "amen." She stayed by his side against her mother's objections and rode in the back of his aunt's car without a carseat, clutching Chris' hand.

When they arrived at the grave, she continued to cling to him through prayers and hymns and, when Chris moved to toss the first handful of dirt into the grave, Rose moved with him, copying his every move as she had always done, her hand still tightly clasped with his.

It wasn't until everyone had wandered from the graveside, finding little groups to talk, commiserate, and comfort that Chris finally shook off Rose's grip, sat down beside the open grave, and began to cry.

Rose knelt silent beside him, dirtying the hem of the black dress her mother had put her in that morning.

She put her arms around her friend and whispered little shushing noises to him as he wept.

"Don't worry, Chris Foreman," Rose whispered as the storm began to die. "I'm here. I'll take care of you. Forever."

Chris was six years old and wondered if this might be what it was to fall in love.

~?~?~?~?~

They both remembered Jackie's wedding to Mr. Rassilon.

"I don't want them to get married," Rose complained as the pair of them sat on the porch the night before the wedding as the adults drank and carried on inside the house.

"She's only doing it 'cause he's rich," she added. "Why else would anyone get married?"

Chris, at a wise and worldly 10 years old had an answer. "Because they want to go to bed together," he said.

"Go to bed?" Rose asked, blankly. "And do what?"

Chris was stymied by this one, though he didn't want to admit it.

"Well, when you and I have sleepovers we build pillow forts and eat candy and watch Disney. Maybe it's like that," he ventured.

Rose seemed to consider this. "Do  _we_ have to get married then? 'Cause we go to bed together, don't we?"

"Erm," Chris said, blushing to the tips of his ears. "Maybe? My Aunt Sarah says that you're s'posed to be married, but I dunno if you have to be."

"If you don't have to be married to go to bed, then they shouldn't. I don't want to live with Mr. Rassilon. He's creepy. And I don't want to do the wedding tomorrow." Rose's voice, which had been so matter-of-fact suddenly shook.

"Why not? Aunt sarah said you didn't have to do anything but stand there," Chris said.

"Yeah! All alone in front of loads of people!"

"You won't be alone. Aunt Sarah, and your mom, and Mr. Rassilon, and his friend Mr. Barbossa-"

"Mr. Borusa."

"Right him- they'll all be there too."

"Then that should be plenty of people. I don't want to do it!" Rose slammed her fist into the wood of the porch.

Chris frowned at her as she cradled her now-bruised hand against her chest. "Are you scared?"

"No!" Rose shouted, standing up and glaring at him. "Don't call me scared!" And with that she took off running into the dark woods behind her house.

"Rose!" Chris shouted, jumping up to run after her. "Rose! Come back!"

He wasn't really scared. He and Rose played in those woods nearly every day and knew them nearly as well as they knew their own houses, but it was dark, and Rose was little, and you never knew what might happen to a little girl in the dark.

When he found her, however, she wasn't in the dark. There was a clearing where the pair of them played at knights and pirates during the golden days. At night, lit by the moon, it was a fairy glen, and Rose Tyler was Tatiana- gilded in silver and serene.

Chris sat beside her in the fairy circle of mushrooms and the pair sat quiet beneath the moon for a time.

"Maybe she loves him," Chris suggested, finally. "Maybe that's why she's marrying him."

"Maybe," Rose echoed. After a long, quiet time, she spoke again. "You'll marry me someday, won't you, Chris?"

"What?" Chris shouted, shattering the stillness of the glade and nearly falling backward in his surprise.

"You'll marry me because I love you, and we can go to bed together, and never eat anything but pizza and candy, and you'll take care of me, and I'll take care of you."

Chris blinked for a moment at this rush, then smiled. "Of course I'll marry you. When we're older."

"Good," Rose said. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. "C'mon then, we should get back to the house before we get bit by too many mosquitoes."

The next day, as she stood beside her mother the bride, whenever Rose felt scared, she found Chris' face in the crowd.

~?~?~?~?~

Jackie Tyler died when Rose was 10 and Chris was 13. The whispers around town were that she drank herself to death.

Chris didn't care what people muttered to each other so long as they didn't say anything to Rose.

He stood beside her in the church and held her hand as she had held his nearly a lifetime ago.

At the graveside, as Rose was called forward to drop her handful of dirt atop the gleaming casket, Chris moved to go with her, as she had once done for him, but was stopped by a large hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Rose's stepfather, Mr. Rassilon.

"She'll do it alone," Rassilon said quietly. "She's not a child."

Chris turned to Rose and found her looking at him, eyes wide and terrified. He knew she needed his strength to do what she had to do, and he shook off Rassilon's hand to go to her. He took her hand, knelt with her as she picked up her handful of dirt, and his followed right after hers when she threw it.

When everyone else had dispersed, Rose finally turned to him and buried her face in the collar of his black suit jacket and wept. Chris held her like a glass figurine- deep emotion and intrinsic awkwardness kept his hands gentle on her hair and back.

When Rassilon arrived to take Rose away, Chris gently disentangled them.

"Don't worry, Rose Tyler," he whispered and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'm with you forever. They'll never ever separate us."

The next day, when he arrived at her house to see Rose, Rassilon sent him away.

~?~?~?~?~

She was 13 the first time he saw a bruise on her, but he had a feeling that it wasn't the first time that one had been there.

Rassilon had declared their friendship inappropriate and forbade them to see each other, but Chris and Rose knew the woods and Rassilon did not, so they met there after school nearly every day.

The bruise was on her upper arm and was in the shape of a large handprint. He'd never have seen it, but it was hot and Rose decided to take off her sweater. Under it she was wearing nothing but a thin-strapped tank top.

Chris' mouth went dry at the sight of all that glorious pale skin. Then he saw the blemish and his teeth clenched and his vision went bloody.

He took her arm, gentle for all his fury.

"Was it Rassilon?" he asked, surprised at how steady his voice was.

"It doesn't matter, Chris," she said, not meeting his eyes. A confession, he knew.

"I'll kill him."

Rose tugged her arm out of his grasp. "You won't. He'd kill you first and no one would ever know where to find the body. It's not important."

"Rose-"

"It's not. Someday we're going to get out of here, you and me, Chris. We're going to go somewhere that Rassilon isn't and we're going to have an amazing life as far from him as we can possibly be, isn't that right?"

"Rose-"

"We're going to get married and go to bed together and eat nothing but pizza and candy and you'll take care of me, and I'll take care of you."

Chris blinked. "You remember all that?"

Rose smiled. "Hard to forget the night you got engaged, isn't it?"

"Rose… you told me that night that you loved me, and that's why you wanted to marry me. I'll get you away from him, I promise. I don't know how yet, but I will. You know that right? You don't have to-"

"Shut up, Chris. I've loved you my entire life, idiot. I'm not going to marry you just to get away from Rassilon. I'm going to marry you because getting out of this town won't mean anything if I'm not with you."

Furious as Chris still was with Rassilon, and as impotent as he felt to do anything to fix it, the look that Rose gave him at that moment made him feel like he could do anything in the world.

"Don't you worry, Rose Tyler," he whispered, leaning over and pressing a gentle, chaste kiss against her mouth. "I'll take care of you forever."

~?~?~?~?~

Chris graduated three months before Rose's 16th birthday.

They didn't talk about it- didn't plan. Rose simply knew, when she climbed out of her window under that moon-bright sky, that he would be there, just as he had known, as he'd strode the paths in their forest that she would come to him.

They said nothing. In the past few years, he had taken to wearing black leather and cutting his hair short, even though it made his ears stick out. In the shadows, he was the Beast from Disney, and his eyes, lit by moonlight, were silver-star bright.

She was a rose, like her name, white and pink and beautiful in the fairy glade where she'd first told him she loved him as a child.

They came together silent, mouths hungry for each other, hands tugging and pressing, eager for skin to explore.

His jacket was the first to go, shoved from his shoulders with a solid thump to the ground. Chris pulled her t-shirt up and over her head in one movement, his mouth back on hers too quickly to even take in the scenery, and so it was that he discovered that she hadn't chosen to wear a bra by touch alone.

"God, Rose," he groaned against her mouth, the first words either of them had said.

"Chris, please."

He could not deny her and he did not stop her when her hands went to his fly to discover what lay beneath. They were both too hungry, too wanting, too tired of waiting to go slow that night. There would be other nights for slow. Their whole lives for slow. That was a night for "now."

Chris lowered her to the ground and began to fumble at her jeans, even as she continue to excavate under his. Eventually they both gave up undressing the other, and threw off their remaining clothes themselves, desperate to come together.

Under the moonlight they kissed, learning the secrets of their skin. The first brush of Rose's tender nipples against Chris' chest made them both gasp.

"Chris," she whimpered. "Please, I want you."

He reached his hand down to her warm, wet cleft and nearly groaned.

"I can't… Rose I don't know…"

"I don't care, please. Please."

He couldn't help himself. He moved over her and lined himself to her. He tried to go slowly, but didn't know how slowly to go.

"Rose please… I don't want to hurt you."

"Just do it, Chris, just get it over with. Please."

And so he did. He pushed inside of her in one movement, then stilled at her slight squeak.

"Rose?"

"Just… one moment. Please."

He held himself still. He nearly trembled with the urge to go on, to move forward, but he waited for her to tell him he could.

"Is it… is it terrible for you?" he asked.

"No… it's very strange. I think you can move now… if-if you want."

"God, Rose. If I want?" Chris let out a shaky laugh, and moved gently, watching her face to see if he was hurting her. "Is this okay?"

"Yeah," she said, a line between her brows. "Yeah, that's fine. Do that."

After a few moments, Chris found a rhythm that felt like heaven. It seemed only a moment when he felt the inevitable approaching.

"Rose… Rose I'm going to... "

"Come for me, Chris. Please," she murmured, her arms around his neck and her mouth hot at his ear.

With a shout, he came, face buried in her neck, feeling as though his heart would burst at it all.

When he finally returned to the land of the living, she was still there, watching him with an oddly amused expression on her face.

"Was it horrible for you?" he asked, sheepishly.

"Not at all. Not near so bad as I'd heard it would be."

"Em… did you… you didn't… em… come, did you?"

Rose shook her head. "No, but that's all right. We'll get it right the next time."

Chris grinned at her. "Rose Tyler," he whispered. "I love you so much."

~?~?~?~?~

The day she turned 16 she went into work at the little clothing boutique in town where she worked with a black eye.

Word made it to Chris at the mechanic's garage before lunchtime, and he went to find her where she was sitting at the back of the store with her sandwich and soda.

"I think he may have finally knocked some sense into me," was the first thing she said to him as he sat down beside her. "We're leaving, you and me. Tonight."

"I'll wait for you in our clearing," he said.

~?~?~?~?~

She died that night.

Rassilon had known they would try to run, and he had followed them. Chris and Rose ran, hand-in-hand through the woods. It was magic until the hot, muggy peace of the night was shattered by the sound of gunfire.

"The bastard's got a gun," was Chris' first thought until Rose's tug on his hand made him turn to see her white as a sheet, blood blooming over the white of her t-shirt.

Every other thought in his head was suddenly replaced with horrific denial.

"Rose."

She fell forward into his arms, eyes fluttering shut as he lowered her to the ground, knees in the dust turning to mud with her blood.

"I was aiming for you, lad."

Quicksilver eyes met merciless black ones above his head.

"You killed her."

Rassilon shrugged. "You dishonored her. She was my daughter, I could do with her as I would, but you thought you had the right to take her away."

"You don't deserve to live in the same universe as her," Chris said, suddenly surging to his feet. "I should kill you."

"I'd like to see you try."

Chris took a step forward and, for the second time that night, the silence was broken by the cold snap of gunpowder and lead.

Chris looked down and could see the growing shiny patch on his own dark jumper.

He died that night.

~?~?~?~?~

In the town cemetery there is a pair of white marble tombstones set side-by-side.

On one is the name Christopher Foreman, and the dates 1986-2005. Inscribed below are the words " _don't worry_."

On the other is the name Rose Tyler, and the dates 1989-2005. Inscribed below are the words " _I'll take care of you_."


End file.
